It's the place I go for relaxation and reflection, our place to fish, our kaimoana pantry, our outdoor gym, a place for whanau gatherings.
It's our beach, a place where every day feels like a holiday.
Our access to it has been taken away.
But it isn't man who is the worst affected by the oil, it's the marine life - all thanks to somebody's mistake.
Many of the rock pools are now inhabitable. Oil has polluted our sand and the ocean and debris from containers which fell from the ship litters the water and coastlines.
I took my dog for a short walk along the beach at Mount Maunganui a few days after the Rena stranded on the Atrolabe Reef.
First, there was the ghostly blowfish, then two fish washed up on the shore, the skeletons picked clean by the gulls. I counted seven fish skeletons and two blowfish washed up in that short walk.
It has always been an amazing fishing spot for snapper and kingfish; it's their home and breeding ground - was their home and breeding ground. I joked to my partner that we might have to go for a swim right then as we might not get a chance this summer.
Call me cynical, but I thought the situation had been blown out of proportion and the Government didn't seem too bothered so surely ... it couldn't be that bad.
Two days later, I was walking the dog on the beach again.
Dotted along the beach, the size of milk bottle tops, sprinkled like confetti, mixed with the pipi and tuatua on the tide marks were blobs of oil.
As there were no officials in sight and no public health warnings, I poked at them.
The oil was thick and sticky, apparently highly toxic - and now all over the dog's paws.
I was starting to get angry.
The oil was now on our beautiful beaches, the first casualties had been found and I questioned what kind of salvage effort could be made, given the weather conditions.
When we returned to Papamoa, my partner and I wandered down to the beach. Nothing could have prepared us for the surreal scene at our beloved beach.
The smell engulfed my nostrils as soon as I opened the car door.
It stung at my throat and stayed there for three days.
It reminded me of ports, a strong sea spray smell competing with a diesel fume.
Locals had unofficially cleaned up bags of the oil and I felt guilty for not having done my bit.
My partner is your typical Kiwi bloke and it takes a lot to upset him, but the shock of seeing the beach he grew up on and loved appeared to have been left to fend for itself.
Like many locals, he was furious at being told to stay off the beach, helpless, left to watch the devastation.
The locals could only do so much and had cleared the main part of the beach. The rest was covered in blobs of oil, some as big as about five metres in diameter.
As we left, I wondered what was going to happen to the oil-filled plastic bags that had been piled up along the shoreline.
When I arrived at the beach about 10am the next day, the smell was even stronger and the fumes stung my eyes.
Peeps of sand could be seen through the sticky black blanket covering the beach as midnight black waves washed ashore and pulled more oil back into the ocean.
Nobody had taken responsibility for the 100 or so plastic bags and they were being ripped open by the tide, spilling the contents back into the water.
The ripped plastic bags accompanied the oil back out to sea.
A clear contrast was visible in the waves - the black oil-saturated breakers against the blue ocean. Beyond the breakers, the water appeared normal but closer to shore the sea had turned black.
The beach is still closed. The ship can be clearly seen on the horizon, taunting us with the threat it holds to our beach, our lifestyle, our hobbies, our kaimoana, our wildlife - our Bay of Plenty.
